Electric computer games, Beast Mastery hunting and obscure references

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally got back into Hunting in a big way. I’m (finally gods) heroic-capable and approaching the same proficiency as I had in Wrath. There’s a problem, though, and that problem is certain parts of the WoW community.

Certainly not everyone in the community is difficult to get on with. Only yesterday I had an excellent heroic pug which dealt with our one wipe with humour and got on with it. The other hunter and I had a long discussion about the relative merits of Beastmastery and Survival (and thank you very much Worgen Huntress for your compliment on my single target damage, that’s exactly what I needed to hear when I’m just getting back on the horse).

Regrettably, this group was in the minority. About 50% of the heroic groups I’ve been in so far have fallen apart, and none of them due to an inability to complete the dungeon. Every single time, it’s some overentitled, rude idiot whining like a ferengi and dropping group because he or she can’t recognise that dungeon groups are made up of other people who have given up their time and have just the same right to expect to run and finish the dungeon.

Example: My first Heroic run of this expansion with Semseye’s balance druid alt Drainia. The tank is pulling his 10 year old son through the dungeon in the hope of getting a certain sword for him. The tank marks CC targets and primary attack targets with different symbols every time, but he communicates and I will forgive any player a lot if they just talk to me. We progress, and I’m really enjoying having to trap things again. Unfortunately we wipe on the first boss – not due to low DPS but because of a general tactics failure. The tank whispers me saying he’s going to kick Drainia because his DPS is too low.

Wait a moment. Drania is doing a clear 2k DPS more than the tank’s son and we’re expected to pull him through but Drania can’t stay? He has as much right to be in this group as they do. I was about to whisper him back indicating that I would not support any vote to kick, but Drania’s player was on the PC next to me and can clearly see what’s going on. He says “Don’t kick me!”, and the tank and his son bail followed swiftly by the healer.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have trouble accepting that other people deserve to exist, that you are more important than everyone else, do not queue up. If you are incapable of fairly dealing with other people and think it’s acceptable to think only of yourself, it’s likely that you’re not really suited to running dungeons with random people. Work with your group to progress through the instance or don’t bother pugging content. Almost all random groups are capable of pushing through any heroic dungeon with a little consideration and time.

(Double points for all you considerate, tolerant and competant people queueing for randoms, you’re the ones who make pugging occasionally tolerable and I think you deserve special mention. I’ll be writing more about you in the future than about the idiots who seem to exist only to suck the fun out of the game. Much as it irritates me, I want to talk more about the ways in which people are awesome than the ways in which they are not for a while).